The
United Nations clarified on its Chinese microblog yesterday that the tribunal
that ruled against China’s historic claims over the disputed South China Sea
was not a UN agency.

The
statement came amid apparent public misunderstanding of the tribunal’s
operations.

The UN
said the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which issued the decision
on the case on Tuesday, operated out of the same building, the Peace Palace, as
the UN’s primary justice branch, the International Court of Justice, but the
two agencies were unrelated.

“The UN
makes donations to the Carnegie Foundation (the building’s owner) every year
for using the building,” the UN post said.

“Another
renter of the Peace Palace is the Permanent Court of Arbitration established in
1899, but [it] has nothing to do with the UN.”

The post
came a day after the tribunal dismissed China’s sweeping claims to contested
waters in the South China Sea, adding that it violated the Philippines’
sovereign rights by building artificial islands and caused irreparable harm to
the coral reef ecosystem.

China has
long claimed almost all of the South China Sea, including reefs and islands
that also claimed by other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines
and Vietnam.

The Chinese
government reacted angrily to Tuesday’s decision, calling the ruling invalid.

Some
internet users also lashed out at the UN, apparently thinking the international
body was linked to the tribunal.

“When we
make such sacrifices to keep peace, a subsidiary of the UN makes a ruling
against China’s sovereign rights. So what do you want to do?” a Chinese
microblogger wrote in response to a UN post after the ruling was ­announced.

China was
a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and one of the five permanent
members of the UN Security Council, along with the United States, Britain,
France and Russia.

China has
pledged to be more engaged in the UN, and is the second-biggest contributor to
the organisation’s peacekeeping operations, paying 10.2 per cent of the UN’s
peacekeeping operations budget.

Established
by treaty, the Permanent Court of Arbitration is an intergovernmental
organization that provides various dispute resolution services to the
international community, according to its official website.